Wife selling in England was a way of ending an unsatisfactory marriage by mutual agreement that probably began in the late 17th century, when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthiest. After parading his wife with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, a husband would publicly auction her to the highest bidder.
Although the custom had no basis in law and frequently resulted in prosecution, with at least one early 19th-century magistrate stating on record that he did not believe he had the right to prevent wife sales.There were cases of local Poor Law Commissioners forcing husbands to sell their wives, rather than having to maintain the family in workhouses.
Wife selling persisted in England in some form until the early 20th century, with one of the last reported instances of a woman giving evidence in a Leeds police court in 1913 claiming that she had been sold to one of her husband’s workmates for £1.
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